


A man with his insides out and his outsides off

by britomart_is



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Dean Winchester Loves Sam Winchester, Depressed Sam, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hero Worship, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Pre-Canon, Sam Winchester Loves Dean Winchester, Samulet, Self-Destruction, Size Difference, Time Travel, Underage Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Young Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-29 08:44:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6367813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britomart_is/pseuds/britomart_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say there are only two stories in the world: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The small, curved needle is shaking in Dean's hands. Or his hands are shaking, whatever, he's been hauling a shotgun around all night, and that shit is heavy. 

Blood and stinging iodine and stitches in skin—these things aren't new, Dean's stitched up Dad, himself, even Sammy. So it's not like he's shaking over that. 

"Get on with it," Dad says. "Could use the practice."

Dean can hear the hunter cursing a blue streak through the wall, so he grabs the rest of the med kit and heads through the door that connects their rooms. And damn if the sonofabitch isn't standing there stitching up his own damn skin, like they hadn't just caught the guy digging out the bullet, like John hadn't just ripped the guy a new one and told Dean to finish it up. 

"Stop it," Dean says. Shitty acoustics in here, that sounded real quiet. Try again. "Stop it, let me do it." 

The hunter looks at him and for a second Dean can actually see the person in there—the guy who’s hurting and tired and wants to feel better—before his eyes go empty again. "Why? 'Cause your dad told you to?"

"'Cause you're being a dumbass," Dean says. Taking a chance, talking to a hunter that way, this guy who's older and heavily armed and maybe a little unhinged. But Dean's still feeling out the boundaries. And the guy can't be that much older than him—a paradox of stray gray hairs, oughta-be-fatal scars, lean muscle, broad shoulders, smooth skin. 

"Right." The corner of the hunter's mouth lifts. He ties off a stitch and sets aside his own needle. "Where do you want me?"

"Uh," Dean says. "On the bed, I guess."

So the guy sits back against the headboard, leaves space for Dean to sit. Dean sits. Right. The gunshot wound is on the hunter's side, below his chest and above the line of hair that trails from his navel down out of sight beneath his waistband. The hunter clears his throat and Dean's eyes snap up, catching a glint of amusement in the guy's expression. 

Dean's needle pierces the guy's skin, prompting a furrowed brow and a hiss. Dean shoves through to the other side, trying not to make a mess and fuck this up (and Jesus fucking Christ the hunter’s got a lot of scars, rough-looking, self-stitched lacerations and burns and what's gotta be another gunshot.) The man's hand fumbles and produces a bottle of amber liquid from somewhere in the bedding. Takes a slug straight out of it, and it occurs to Dean that this is the first time he's actually seen the guy drink, which is a fine fucking accomplishment given Dean's never actually seen him sober—just slurred words and shaking hands and mouthwash smell that doesn't cover up jack shit. 

Dean ties off the last stitch. He thinks he did a good job. It's important that he did a good job. 

"You're good at that," the hunter says, and Dean feels warmth in his cheeks and the tips of his ears and he fucking hates that, someday he'll finish growing and no one will call him pretty and he won't fucking blush. 

Dean fumbles with the gauze, uses a little to clean the blood off the hunter's stomach _(don't think about it just do it)_ and carefully tapes down a clean square. Textbook-perfect wound care. 

The silence gets a little louder, and Dean realizes that he's still looking at that clean white bandage and his hands are still resting lightly on the hunter's skin. 

Without his brain's permission, Dean's fingers creep lower. Over that line of hair that points the way. Then his hand's resting on the hunter's belt buckle. He swallows hard. 

"Dean." It's almost a whisper, a low rasp. Dean leaves his hand where it is and looks up, and there it fucking is, there's something alive behind the hunter's eyes again, _starving, suffering, sorrowful, sacred_ , but it's something and it makes Dean feel like the most powerful person on earth that he put it there. 

"Dean!" Dean jumps as the connecting door slams against the wall and John leans into the doorway. "You done yet?"

"Yessir." Dean scrambles to gather the med kit as John disappears again. 

A hand catches Dean as he steps away, wraps all the way around his wrist, makes him look small, which Dean fucking well is _not_. "Dean. Thank you." 

"Yessir."

The hunter makes that almost-smile of his, like he's forgotten how to do it and he's just imitating everyone else. "Call me Sam, okay?"

"Yeah," Dean says, clutching the med kit tightly. "Okay. Uh, Sam." 

"G'night, Dean." And then and then oh God, the almost-smile is more smile-like, and there are white teeth and oh shit dimples. 

And then Dean's shutting the door behind him and he's got a hard-on for the eighth time today and he's sharing a shitty motel room with his dad and his twelve-year-old little brother, and he heads for the shower so he can jerk off over a really hot, definitely alcoholic, probably crazy and borderline suicidal hunter. 

And this is why Sam Moore is ruining Dean Winchester's life.


	2. Chapter 2

How it begins:

Dark room rotted-wood-smell book corners cutting into Dean's hands Dad's got her pinned Dad's cursing and struggling and the black-eyed woman's screaming and screaming and Dean is speaking very carefully very precisely not fumbling his Latin and it's fucking _Latin_ he knows this shit he's got it but why why isn't it working and the shadows shift and a giant walks out and before anyone can do anything the giant stabs the woman with a fucking _knife_ and crackle like lightning and flash and she's limp in Dad's arms.

Dad's gun in his hands pointed at the giant and the giant pulls his knife from the woman the body lolls back to the floor the giant wipes the knife off looks down the length of the shotgun right into John Winchester's eyes and says, "You're using the wrong exorcism."

The book is in Dean's hands he knew he had the Latin right he knew wait who the _fuck_.

The giant says, "And I'm gonna show you how to make a Devil's Trap."

 

\\\

 

Sometimes Dean worries that Dad is going to shoot the hunter. Sam. That Dad is going to shoot Sam. Or that Sam will shoot Dad.

Neither of them plays particularly well with others.

But Sam Moore is a good hunter. Really, really good.

( _Too good, no one can be that good at killing things and not be a psychopath_ —)

(— _Shut up, Sammy._ )

And John has a mission. John needs to be a good enough hunter to complete that mission. So if the one man on earth more fanatically devoted to salting and burning things comes along and is willing to teach—John will learn. For ten minutes till they get into another shouting match.

 

\\\

 

"How'd you learn all this shit, anyway?"

"Dean," John says mildly, warning. Eyes on the crumbling book Sam brought back and said _read_.

Sam is reloading spent hulls with rock salt. The press creaks. He examines the perfectly-crimped shell before answering. "My father taught me."

John actually looks up in surprise before hiding it and going back to the book.

"So." Dean tells his mouth to stop but it keeps going. "You've been doing this since—uh—"

"All my life."

 

And oh man, does Sammy (kid is always listening, how the hell's he do that) ever latch onto that new trivia.

"We're gonna end up like that." Sammy looks—okay, Dean never said this—freakin' adorable when he's sulking. The intended effect is kind of ruined by the fact that he's pretty shrimpy for twelve, and he's got that babyface—

"No, we're not." Dean kicks at Sammy with a socked foot, and Sammy kicks back. The TV gives a burst of noise; someone's throwing a chair on Jerry Springer.

Sammy thunks his head to the arm of the couch, swings his feet into Dean's lap. "Dad wants us to. I mean, he's this great hunter, right? Like we're supposed to be."

"Yeah, but." Dean needs to explain. Maybe some day he'll have aim like that, maybe he'll know that much, but Sammy will never have emptiness inside. "We'll be all right. You'll be all right."

Sammy grumbles in response.

"And hey," Dean says. "Sam's not that bad. I mean, he's a cool guy."

"I think he's crazy," Sammy says. "And he's not Sam, I'm Sam."

"You're Sammy."

Sammy's quiet. "I don't wanna be like that."

"Hey," Dean says. "Hey. You won't, okay?" He taps his fingers along the soles of Sammy's feet. "As long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you."

Dean waits a heartbeat. "'Sides, you'll never be that tall."

 

\\\

 

Dean has every reason not to like Sam. Sam smells like a distillery and looks like a mountain man and is pretty obviously stealing a new car every week and doesn't give a fuck about collateral damage and has been shot once and stabbed twice since Dean's known him and really needs a shave, rehab, and a fucking vacation, not in that order. He knows how to summon demons, kill demons, do things with blood and smoke and chalk and ash that are too dark to allow and too effective not to. Sometimes he holes up in his room and doesn't come out for days, leaving Dean thinking he's drowned in his own vomit. He goes out at night, with that knife or with this little tin box or with nothing at all, and he comes back with dirt under his fingernails and doesn't say where he's been. One part dangerous, one part pathetic, and a dash of death-wish for spice.

Dean has every reason.

But when Sam's in the room, Dean wants to be closer to him.


	3. Chapter 3

They warned him, Dad and Sam, they told him not to breathe in the goddamn smoke, and Dean hates himself for it later, but in the moment he just sees the witch’s scythe slicing toward Dad’s neck and he gasps in a huge breath as he bolts forward to block her swing. 

His sight smash-cuts to black as his knees go loose beneath him. 

Then Dean’s moving in a dreamworld where the air is thick with unreality, thick with the scent of that same smoke. It invokes visions, Dad had said, looking up from a dusty book of lore — had driven emperors mad with hints of their kingdoms falling, parted lovers with glimpses of a future in which they exchanged cold glances over the breakfast table, hiding behind their newspapers. 

“Maybe they’re self-fulfilling prophecies,” Sammy had said. He’d paused thoughtfully in the midst of a bite of cereal, and a dribble of milk had run down his chin. “Like Macbeth. Like, what if the future isn’t written until they see it?” 

Dean had rolled his eyes and said, “Deep, Shakespeare,” and stolen the rest of Sam’s cereal. The marshmallows were turning the milk a muddy purple. 

Now he’s moving across a motel room that isn’t quite real. His feet seem to sink too deep with each step, like the rough carpet is a swamp, ready to suck him down. 

Sam and Sammy are sitting on the end of a bed, playing video games. Sammy’s getting his ass kicked. 

“Dean,” Sammy whines. “Help me, he’s killing me.” 

“It’s fine,” Dean says, distracted. There’s smoke wreathing the door. He speaks from memory, only half-aware. “As long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you.” 

He feels pulled to the door, needs to see what’s on the other side, where that smoke is coming from. 

He hears Sam’s deep voice rumble from behind him, as gentle as Dean’s ever heard him. 

“What if you’re not around?”

Dean steps out the door. He needs to investigate. There might be a fire. Maybe he needs to put it out. 

But outside in the parking lot, Dean’s steps are sinking into the asphalt, and the smoke turns out to be nothing but fog, a chill mist that wraps all around him and makes him shiver violently. A dog bays in the distance. 

Dean feels like there’s something he needs to look for, to find. 

Another dog, howling a lonely response to the first. Little closer this time. Dean sees it through the fog. 

“Good pooch,” he says, suddenly aware of how his skin has crawled into gooseflesh. He’s out here in just a thin t-shirt. Maybe it’s time to go back inside. 

But inside the room, everything is wrong. The lightbulb hums thinly, dims, on the edge of burning out. There’s dust everywhere, thick on the weapons spread over the table. 

Sammy’s alone in the room. He’s crammed into a corner, nearly hidden behind the dresser, sitting on the carpet with his skinny knees splayed out. He’s cradling a bottle of Sam’s liquor. It sloshes in Sammy’s shaking hands, whiskey looking red in the half-light of the dying bulb. 

“You’re too young for that,” Dean says, taking in the rest of Sammy with growing alarm. His lips are dry and cracked. He has dirt under his fingernails. He looks like some foundling child, uncared-for, half-dead. “Sammy, what the hell?” 

“I got hungry,” Sammy says. “The rest is all gone.” 

A spider crawls down from Sammy’s hair, legs moving slowly across his forehead and toward his eyes. Dean sees that its web is spun up over Sam’s skinny shoulders. How long has he been crouched here in the dark?

“What happened?” Dean says. He kneels, starts trying to pull the spider silk off of Sammy. It sticks to his hands. “I just stepped outside for a minute!” 

Sammy looks at him curiously, and Dean strains to hear him over the sound of those damn dogs barking outside. “Dean, you were gone for months.” 

Dean wakes up flat on his back in the witch’s basement, rivulets of water running off his face and down the collar of his shirt. Dad’s standing over him with a bucket. 

“What did I tell you about breathing the smoke?” Dad says. “God damn it, Dean.” 

Dad looks angry. Sam, lurking tall in the background, just looks rattled. Like maybe he was worried about Dean. Dean thinks he likes that. 

Dean’s on edge after that, watches Sammy closer on hunts, feeds him up better at mealtimes, even starts watching as he drops off to sleep until Sammy catches him and crabbily tells him to quit being creepy. 

Visions are bullshit, Dean decides then and there. Witches don’t know shit. They don’t know Dean. He won’t let anything happen to his brother. 

He’d go to hell and back for that kid.


	4. Chapter 4

So Sam grew up hunting. 

But that doesn't make you into Sam. 

A lifetime of bad food and gross fluids and breaking-and-entering and innocent strangers who die no matter how hard you try, that doesn't make you Sam. 

Dean's trying to figure him out. There's wanting. There's despair. 

Dean thinks _wife_. Or _kid_. Or hell, _schoolbus full of orphaned puppies_ , but _someone_ created this Sam. Went away and left an empty space behind Sam's eyes.

So he asks. 

Dad's got Sammy doing target practice, Dean and Sam off in a field to spar. 

Dodge weave thump _goddamn_ and it's not really fair 'cause Sam's a giant and he's got these muscles, see, but he's got Dean pinned. Dry grass scratches against Dean's back. Sam starts to get up so Dean grabs at the waist of his jeans and that gets his attention. 

And then and then oh Sam's leaning down and Dean says, "Who died?"

Sam freezes. 

"That’s right, isn’t it? There’s someone who's—gone."

Sam still hovers over Dean's body. His eyes flutter shut. "Dean."

"Who was it?" 

When Sam’s eyes open again they're not empty and they're not full of secrets, they're just the eyes of this guy who loved somebody. Loves somebody, Dean thinks maybe that's the problem, when the love stays and the person goes. Sam looks tired. 

"My partner," Sam says. He moves off of Dean, and then he's just sitting there in the dead field. "Hunting partner." 

And Dean thinks ah, _partner_.

And he kisses Sam. 

Sam snaps or something, hauls Dean into his lap with those huge hands crushing his hips, and his mouth is on Dean's but it's not a kiss, not like Dean's ever known it trying to get his hand up a cheerleader's shirt, and Sam's just so fucking _big_ , and fuck it he's stronger than Dean, and Sam's wanting is so fucking huge Dean thinks it might swallow him up. 

Sam's hand is in Dean's jeans and on Dean's ass and Dean makes a noise and Sam stops _nononono_ pulls away _fuckno_ and says, "I'm sorry," this look on his face that Dean can't even begin to decode. 

He manhandles Dean back off of his lap and then Sam's sitting there staring at his own feet, looking like a real human person with like, feelings. 

"I'm sorry."

Sam stands up, brushes the dirt off his jeans, and heads back to the motel.

 

\\\

 

Dean thinks, sometimes, about Sam’s partner. His lover. He’s not sure if it’s jealousy or what, the way he feels about this guy who got to have Sam. Was he a good hunter? Or did Sam run the show? How did they meet? Did this man, this lover, stitch up the wound on Sam’s back, that nasty one Sam couldn’t have reached himself? Did he take good enough care of Sam? Was he another big guy? Or maybe smaller, someone Sam could drape an arm around.

Or was that even the way they were with each other? Maybe it was an easy camaraderie, maybe they kissed in public and curled up together in motel beds to watch late-night movies. Or maybe it was totally different, maybe they kept it strictly business most of the time but tore into each other after a close call on a hunt. 

There are long hours of the night, shifting in bed, hard and restless, for Dean to imagine exactly how they touched each other. 

Dean thinks maybe he hates the guy. Maybe for getting to see more of Sam than Dean does. Maybe for getting there first. Maybe for swanning off and dying and leaving Sam all screwed in the head. It might be kind of petty to hate someone for dying, but seriously, it’s a very irresponsible thing to do. 

Dean watches Sam differently, now, as he goes about his day. Tries to imagine another person slotted in there. Sam’s feet tangled with someone else’s under a diner table. He transposes Sam’s strong slim fingers from the grip of his gun onto a man’s wrist, his throat. 

When Sam whispers close in Dean’s ear on a hunt, _you take the cellar, I’ll take the attic,_ Dean shudders and wonders if that’s what Sam sounds like when he’s whispering other things, pressed close up against a lover from behind. 

Sometimes he notices Sam’s gaze resting on him. Sam doesn’t even look away when he gets caught. 

“Stare much?” Dean says once. 

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Lots.” His fingers flex around the knife he’s sharpening. 

Dean wants to drop to the floor in front of Sam and lick the blade. 

 

\\\

 

Fake ID. Bar. Girl. Alley. Knees. Zipper. 

Giant in the shadows. 

She disappears when Sam moves into the dim circle of the streetlight and looms. 

Dean's pants are still open. He leans against the brick. 

"Zip it up," Sam says. "I'm taking you back." 

Dean flushes with humiliation as he tucks his dick back in his pants. 

At the motel: not the room with lights in the windows, with Dad and Sammy. 

The room with dark windows. 

Sam drops the key on the floor and pushes Dean to the bed. Still dark. 

Sam kneels by the bed, still huge. "Girl like that, she doesn't really know what she's doing."

Dean nods. Pointless in the dark. Wouldn't put it past Sam to have some freaky superhunter night-vision, though. 

"You can't even imagine," Sam says. "What it's like. When it's good." 

What else could Dean say, but: "Please."

Big hands on small buttons, pants to ankles, big hands again and oh god oh god oh fuck tongue and mouth and so _fucking_ —

 

\\\

 

Dean eats Cheerios at the table with Dad and Sammy and it's all weirdly normal. 

So, here's the thing. 

Sam's got maybe a decade on him, and okay, so Dean really liked it, really fucking wants to do it again, but Sam just sucked off a sixteen-year-old and then came all over his thighs. 

Dad would fucking kill Sam, if he knew. Because those are the facts: A cradle-robber. A poorly groomed transient. A felon. An alcoholic. A self-destructive gun-wielding vigilante.

The facts are not very kind to Sam. 

But then.

But then. 

It's Sam. 

And Dean isn't sure what that means, exactly, but his brain (and his dick and his place-where-stupid-sentimental-shit-lives, whatever you wanna call it) keeps insisting that it's important: it's Sam.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean has to sit on Sam to hold him down before Dad, cursing, can get the needle into him. Sam struggles fiercely for another ten nine eight seven six five before he goes lax beneath Dean, hot blood from the gash in Sam's abdomen wicking up into the denim covering Dean's leg. 

Dad burns the roc's carcass, kicks at the smoldering ashes to scatter them. Dean holds tight to Sam in the car, his big solid body, lets Sam's head loll back against his shoulder, presses the rag against Sam's belly with both hands. He takes the opportunity to rest his nose against Sam's neck. 

Sam's still gloss-eyed and loose-limbed from morphine when Dad stitches him up at the motel. They force-feed him an antibiotic, but Sammy's waiting anxiously in the other room and they need to go back and sleep and Sam is pale eyes-rolled-back unmoving, and it occurs to Dean that this is how a man like Sam dies—alone in a motel room, too much blood left on the forest floor, no one there to make sure he doesn't start bleeding again or vomit and choke or just wake up, look around, see the empty room and die of despair. 

"Someone needs to watch him," Dean says. 

John looks like he's about to growl to Dean that no one needs to do anything but follow orders, but his eyes fall on the unconscious hunter and—honest to God—John fucking Winchester's face softens, almost imperceptibly. Dean thinks Dad secretly likes the guy. 

"I've got it," John says. 

"I'm the only one he'll listen to," Dean counters. "He wakes up and sees you, you're just gonna scream at each other about the hunt." 

So Dean goes to the other room and washes the blood off and changes into sweats and lets Sammy see that he's alive and okay and alive and _yeah seriously Sammy okay_ , and goes back to Sam's room. 

All right, Dean can do this. Keep a hold of the adrenaline, stay awake, keep watch. No problem. 

Dean wakes up. 

Someone is snuffling against his ear, a hand—a large hand—resting on his chest. 

"Sam?"

"Ngggfff," Sam replies. "Dean." All quiet. 

Sam's mouth opens, warm and wet, against Dean's neck. Sucks lightly. 

"Sam." Dean's dick wakes up swiftly, getting hard before Dean can blink the bleariness away and remember that Sam's hurt. "Hey, careful." He pushes at Sam's chest, loses the warmth of his mouth, checks the bandages on Sam's belly—still clean and white. "You hurtin'?"

"Huh-uh." Sam's hand clumsily brushes Dean's face. "Some'n get me?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "The roc. You don't remember?"

"Huh-uh," Sam says. "S'k. You got me." Eyes heavily-lidded, his face is too sleepy for a smile, but he flashes a dimple. "You never let'm get me."

And then, with surprising strength, Sam's pulling Dean up and kissing him deeply, moaning happily. Dean lifts his hips, tries to keep from falling down on Sam's body because Sam _smiled_ and Sam's kissing him with such affection, not a trace of desperation, and if on top of all that Dean lets himself press against Sam's body he is going to come _right now_. 

Sam's trying to roll them, then, trying to get on top of Dean, and God Dean wants that, wants Sam's big solid body to press him down into the mattress, but Sam hisses and Dean's hand is flying to the bandage, checking it again, pressing Sam back down. 

"Okay? You okay? You need more—I'll get the morphine—"

Sam's hand catches Dean's wrist. "Fuck me."

Dean's brain promptly overloads, shuts off, and reboots. He is vaguely aware that his mouth is hanging open. 

Sam's hand wanders up, the calloused pad of a long finger tracing Dean's lower lip before venturing inside. Dean's mouth closes instinctively around the finger to suck. "Can't sit up. Please. Dean."

"You're hurt—"

"Make m'feel better. Never hurt me." 

And yes, that, yes. Dean would never hurt him. Wants to make him feel good. Better. Dean can do that, yes. Sam's just got to let him, and now he is. 

Dean has only a general idea of how this is supposed to go, so he follows Sam's noises, figures he's doing good when Sam can't stop moaning—keeps him quiet in the thin-walled room by kissing him, and Sam kisses back hungrily, like Dean is all he needs. Dean works him open with fingers and cheap lotion that's sticky on Sam's thighs—Sam doesn't seem to mind, shifting impatiently, breath coming quickly. 

When Dean pushes inside, he has to stop for a long moment, hardly believing the good feeling, watching pleasure flit across Sam's face in the darkness. Dean did that, put that happy-warm-horny look on Sam's face, and pride filters in to mix with the awe, the _oh my fucking God I'm never going to leave this bed_. 

"Sam," he says, and starts moving. 

Even though Dean’s the one inside of Sam — oh god, _inside_ his body — even though he’s on top of him, feeling him where he’s so soft and warm and opened up for Dean, Dean feels the way he does when he's got someone at his back on a hunt, when he's at home between the steel walls of the car, like anything in the world can come for him and it won't be able to get at him. He feels Sam’s big hands brushing over his back all the way down to his tailbone, Sam's strong arms wrapped around him. Dean’s cradled inside of him in every way possible, protected, swallowed up. 

And Sam, Sam is not ice. He’s not stone. He shivers when Dean sucks at his long, smooth throat. He’s making these low half-voiced sounds, like he needs Dean so bad, needs Dean to touch him up deep inside, to press and press and press those noises out of him. 

"Dean, Dean, Dean—" Sam lies pliant and warm and peaceful against the pillow and Dean thinks if it weren't for the morphine Sam'd be slamming him back against the mattress and riding him, fucking him till he blacked out. As it is, Dean rocks into him slowly, kisses him again and again, tries to keep his own weight up on his arms, to not hurt Sam, never hurt him. 

A tug against Dean's neck and he realizes Sam's hand is wrapped around the amulet, fingers tugging at the cord. 

As Dean comes, shuddering against Sam, he feels Sam's hips rocking frantically, trying to catch up, thinks Sam's gonna hurt himself, oughta stop him, but then he hears, whispered—"God, I love you,"—and the last thing Dean wants to do is stop him. 

Dean wraps himself around Sam's side as he catches his breath, wipes at them both with the sheet, feels Sam's chest heaving beneath his cheek. And Dean should be coming back down to earth, but it's still so fucking good. So, so good. Dean can do this. It'll be good. Dad and Sammy and Dean and Sam and they'll hunt and Dad will have someone to talk to and Sammy'll have one more person watching out for him and Dean will make Sam better, fix him up, salt and burn the ghosts that haunt him, and Sam will live, he'll live. 

Love. 

Dean feels all the gravity in the world shifting just a little, in some way that's never gonna be undone. 

Sam's breathing is evening out. Sleepy again. 

"You okay?" Dean checks the bandage. Tiny dots of blood staining it. Still safe. 

"Mmm-hmm." Sam's hand is still wrapped around Dean's amulet. "S'k. Better now."

Dean feels a kiss, light on his forehead. 

"S'better now. Had a—" Sam goes quiet for a long moment, and Dean thinks he's fallen asleep. "Had a nightmare.Y'were gone. But s'okay. You're here."

"Right here, Sam." 

 

\\\

 

In the morning, Dean kisses Sam awake. Feels Sam's smile against his mouth, watches Sam open his eyes and blink through the sudden daylight. 

Sam looks like he was expecting someone else.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean's waiting in Sam's room one not-night, one not-quite-getting-light-yet, when Sam comes home with dirty hands. 

He stops in the doorway when he sees Dean, then carries on like he's not there. Sam drops the tin box and the knife on the bed.

Sam rifles through a pile of dirty laundry. Comes up with an almost-empty bottle and begins to empty it. 

Dean opens the box, and Sam watches him do it. 

Box: Fake ID, name Wedge Antilles, picture of Sam looking younger. Dirt. A small bone and maybe Dean doesn't want to know what it belongs to. 

"What do you do out there?"

Sam slumps in a chair and stares at the empty bottle reproachfully. Pills from a pocket. Dry swallow.

"Nothing," he says. He smiles a not-smile and it's horrible. "Absolutely nothing." 

Dean looks at the fake ID and thinks this picture must be from before. He can see the difference. Wishes he'd known that Sam. 

"I thought I could change things," Sam says. "Maybe. If I came here. Thought maybe—" 

"You are," Dean says. "You do. We save people."

"Nothing," Sam says. "Nothing I do changes it. It's all gonna go the same."

"That's not true," Dean says. They kill evil things, they save people, they are changing the world. They are. 

"I stay here I'll probably just get you killed, too." 

"So what, you just go back where you came from?" Dean says. He stands up and he really wants to say something stupid and mortifying, and Sam can't just leave, can't just walk away from Dean. "What's back there?"

"Nothing," Sam says. "There's nothing."

 

\\\

 

In the morning, Dean knocks on Sam's door and a stout Nebraskan tourist with a buzzcut answers. Checked in early that morning. 

Dean waits. 

Sam'll come back. 

Except he doesn't. 

It's only three days, and then they're moving on to the next hunt. There's no word from Sam, and no word, and thirty days after that Dean lets himself think that Sam is probably dead.

 

\\\

 

Time passes, and passes, and passes, like it or not. Some things get forgotten. Others don’t. Dean gets tall, puts a few more notches on the bedpost, watches Sammy sprout up like a sapling. 

There’s yet more time, and there’s pain, and there’s hell, and there’s life again. 

There’s the apocalypse and hell on earth and hell when Dean closes his eyes. 

There’s a stranger in the passenger seat who looks a lot like Sammy. Except for the eyes, empty, overflowing. 

Dean doesn’t say anything. He knows now. Whatever good that does. He remembers.  
_As long as I’m around nothing bad is gonna happen to you._  
_Dean._  
_I’m sorry._  
_You got me._  
_A nightmare._  
_Nothing._  
_Nothing._  
_There’s nothing._

Dean left Sammy alone for four months. Forty years. An eternity. What-the-fuck-ever. 

The man in the passenger seat is not Sammy. Sammy is gone, probably forever. Dean mourns him. This man is Sam. 

Dean mourned him once, too.


End file.
